The Focus Antipassive in K'iche' Mayan

Abstract

My purpose in this paper is to show how the Government and Binding framework of Chomsky (1981) can be extended to the focus antipassive construction in K'iche (Kiche) Mayan. At first sight an antipassive construction would appear to contradict the GB account of passives. It affects an internal rather than an external verb argument. I show that the GB framework can be extended naturally to account for the focus antipassive in K'iche'.

Keywords

• Quiche Language-- Syntax
• Quiche Language-- Transitivity